Scott’s a preschooler! What? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has been one of Scott’s favorite songs for a while. It’s fitting since his bedroom is decorated in an outer space theme with lots of glow in the dark stars. However, crafts have not held Scott’s interest much. But I’m holding out hope that we will have some craft making memories. This was one successful Twinkle Twinkle Little Star crafts for preschoolers

Elli loved this craft, too!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star-y Night Craft for Preschoolers

We’ve been working on colors and chose this craft to work more on the color yellow. I drew a cityscape on a piece of blue construction paper. The Eiffel Tower just sort of happened. My favorite though was when Scott added a star to the top and showed me, calling it the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t know my heart would be so happy about him recognizing and loving this structure.

I cut strips of yellow paper then had Scott cut the yellow strips into little bits. While he was cutting the bits I drew the cityscape and tore small pieces of Duck Tape (that we got from our awesome Family Forward trip to Universal Studios Orlando last summer)

Scott enjoyed gluing the star bits in the sky and then adding in the Duck tape stars. We had fun talking about the color yellow, gluing, and his strategies for where he placed the stars. He stuck with this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star craft for preschoolers longer than I had expected. He was also very excited to show it off to his dad when Brent got home.

Only one day left! Happy Halloween, tomorrow. Just in case you are looking for some last minute ideas, here are some ways to celebrate with ordinary supplies you probably already have on hand.

Pumpkin Pictures

Supplies:

White glue

black food coloring/paint

crayons/oil pastels

watercolors

We drew our pumpkins and the background with pencil. Then we mixed the black into the food coloring into the glue. We painted the lines with the black glue. This created a barrier around sections that helped keep the watercolors in their section.

After the glue dried, we created patterns with the oil pastels. Once we were pleased with our patterns, we pulled out the watercolors and painted each section.

From the Archives

Halloween Wreath: We just used plastic Halloween trinkets we had collected over the season and glued them to a paper plate wreath we painted.

Cotton ball Ghost: I googled “ghost coloring page” and picked one I loved then printed it out. We glued cotton balls to fill it in. This is great for really little ones all the way up to 4/5 year olds. Especially when you let the squeeze the glue themselves. Excellent fine motor development!

What are you or your little one dressing up as this year?

We had an atypical weekend as we watched General Conference for our church. (It’s a broadcast from the leaders of the LDS church that comes in 4 2-hour sessions over two days.) By Sunday afternoon the kids were restless. We’d done puzzles and workbook pages, snuggles and snacks. We’d been spending our time downstairs watching it on TV. But for the final stretch, we took the iPad upstairs and sat at the kitchen table.

The kitchen table is a gathering place in our house. It’s where we craft, snack, do homework, eat, read, listen to music, and produce art. Sammi commented one day to me, “Isn’t it funny that we eat dinner at the craft table?” Creative expression is a huge element of our kids’ days. They are happier and more at peace when they’ve had time to create something. So on this Sunday afternoon we brought out the big guns: the watercolor supplies.

We had watercolor paper. I love the texture of watercolor paper.

We had Crayola watercolor paints. They have the brightest colors and wash up the easiest of all the brands we’ve tried.

Then we have a collection of brushes. The kids love big brushes. Sammi is starting to understand using different brush sizes for different details in her paintings.

Finally a cup of water. And a medicine dropper. We use it to drop a little water in each color.

Here’s the final products. But like always, the process was where they unwind and get back into their good moods. The end result is proof of happy memories and brings a smile to our faces!

Music is becoming an increasingly important part of our play. Music is great for dance parties and altering sour moods. But it’s great for so much more, too. Music is good for learning, bonding, communicating, and creating! As we have gotten to know various albums, specific songs have sparked art projects, gifts, and parties. With so many opportunities to review and share new music here on the blog, I’ve felt inspired to explore and elaborate on the connections we’re making between music and other “related arts” (as they are called at the girls’ school.)

Welcome to Week One of Mixed Media!

In each Mixed Media post I’ll share a song and a creative project that was inspired by the song. My hope is that you will be inspired to share music with your little one in a way that gets you two (or three or four!) connected to each other and to your creative sides. First up, The Colored Pencil Factory by Astrograss. This is the title song of their album set to be released October 16. Take a listen!

Elli received a box of colored pencils for her birthday a few weeks ago. Brand new colored pencils make me want to color something! Combined with the song, I knew we had an art project waiting to happen. As I mulled it over, I remembered Amy of Let’s Explore had an art project on Make and Takes that was the perfect combination of The Colored Pencil Factory and our brand new colored pencils.

She took some of her favorite photos from the summer, turned them black and white, and printed them. Then she and her girls colored them using different art supplies: markers, watercolors, colored pencils. I printed off recent pictures of the kids and one of me in black and white.

We listened to the song while we worked on our pictures. The girls were so excited about coloring that they hardly paid any attention at all to the song or to me. So we listened to the song again. This time through I asked them what colors they were hearing. When we heard a color named we scrambled to find a pencil that color and hold it up. This was a huge hit. Then I had them listen for where all the colors were (in the colored pencil factory.) Of course they both asked what a factory is and we talked about that.

Sammi then drew a picture that started out as a garden. Morphed into a city and finally contained a factory. I love the creative process!

I love the imagery and the illustrations (our version is illustrated by Adrienne Adams). The princesses walk through three different forests to get to the castle where they dance. Each forest is described in a different way: one has leaves with silver drops, one has leaves sprinkled with gold and the final has leaved that sparkle with diamonds.

We started by making leaves from each of the different forests. I drew three different leaf shapes on water color paper. Then I had Sammi (5) watercolor the leaves. Since we’re working on color mixing and tertiary colors she used green, blue-green and yellow-green. After the leaves were dry we cut them out and decorated them with glitter and clear jewels (for diamonds). We were then inspired by this picture:

And put our leaves into a bouquet. This time we painted the water color paper first, then doodled different flowers on the dried paper. Then we cut them out. We put the branches with the leaves down first then layered the flowers over the top. I was just as invested in the creative process of this project as the girls and did way more than I usually do. But it was hard to resist the temptation to make a bouquet on a 12″x17″ sized paper.

I’m not great at taking pictures during the process. But it took us three or four days to do all the parts and finally get it put together. Check out other great books and art projects here or learn more about stART here.

The first unit of the art curriculum we’re doing with Sammi focused on lines. We’ve had fun using our bodies to make lines and drawing the various lines with crayons, markers, colored pencils, and oil pastels. The fun just keeps going when there are so many combinations of materials and content. We just LOVE art at our house.

Earlier this week from Let’s Explore’s Sunday Playful Picks there was a link to a fantastic art project: How to Make Fall Inchies from that artist woman. Inchies are art works completed on 1 inch square canvases. that artist woman uses two inch squares for her early elementary students and that seems more doable for Sammi’s fine motor skills.

After cutting the 2-inchies out I had just enough left over to cut out 12 true inchies. They were so little and cute and I was inspired to make a mini-poster of the different lines we’ve learned.

I used a few to show her my idea of different mediums to make the lines on the square. She, of course, caught on right away and enthusiastically set out to make her inchies.

She made eight of different line inchies before she got bored. So we took a break and did something else. Fortunately I managed to convince her to finish them before dinner so we could get the table cleaned up.

I double mounted them and added a title for her. She could have done it herself; she puts her name and date on all her schoolwork. But she had already done more than she had wanted to and I, impatiently, wanted it finished because I knew otherwise, it might be ages before we got back to it. This is definitely one for her portfolio!

A while back my mom attended a workshop taught by Dr. Wallace Goddard. Actually she attended two, one on strengthening marriages and another on parenting. She absolutely loved what he taught and shared lots of notes and book recommendations with me. While most of them were parenting books, he did recommend one book for children, particularly girls. It’s a princess book. A princess book like you’ve never experienced before.

Fanny’s Dream

Fanny is a hometown girls with big dreams. She plans on marrying the mayor’s son and never working another day in her life. She gets all dolled up for the ball at the mayor’s mansion and sits out to wait for her fairy godmother. While waiting, a suitor named Heber shows up. After a short conversation Heber proposes to Fanny. It means a life of work, but Fanny accepts. They have twins boys and then girl. They make a happy life together. Then one night her fairy godmother shows up. She offers to take her to the mayor’s mansion where there’s an available colonel. As Fanny hesitates the fairy godmother says, impatiently, “Do you want to go to the ball, or not?” Fanny replies, “Not.” And returns to her family in the little farm house. I cry every time I read it!

My favorite line is when Heber proposes. “Even with all that moonlight it took Fanny an hour to give up her dreams. She shook Heber awake.” And accepts his proposal.

In a lot of ways I can relate to Fanny. I had dreams of exotic travel abroad and a life of adventure. But when I met Brent, giving up doing those things in the immediate future felt right. It was hard, but I’m glad I did. I love him and our little girls and have grown more as a person with them in my life than I ever would have if I’d chosen to travel the world instead.

What Happens While I Blog

As I am writing this post, Sammi came to inform me that Elli spilled all the cinnamon sugar on the floor (fortunately there was only a little left). I look up ti find cinnamon sugar on Sammi’s chin. Hmmm. then Elli came i to tell her side of the story. She’s holding the lid and looking like this:

She takes me by the hand to show me the mess. Sammi is sitting on the floor drawing in the pile of cinnamon sugar. She explained that it’s a park. And with each movement of her fingers she tells me about trees growing here, people walking this way or going that way. I love her little park.

Not ready to tackle the mess just yet, I return to blogging. This is what I just found. I’m impressed she was able to get so much back in the container. But, don’t worry, it will end up in the trash!